Don Quijote (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

Don Quijote
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Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages

11 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

charlmartell
Super Polyglot
Senior Member
Portugal
Joined 6252 days ago
286 posts - 298 votes

Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese

Message 9 of 11

09 July 2009 at 7:19pm | IP Logged

DaraghM wrote:

The Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes even surmised they were the same person. This sometimes gets mentioned in Shakespeare authorship discussions.

The mystery deepens, not only might Shakespeare have been several different people, he might even have been outstandingly bilingual to boot. Very versatile old man!

As for Don Quijote, I could never read that book, it turned me right off, as did Virgil, Homer, Camões and Goethe. Then, instead of reading, I tried listening to it and found it absolutely fantastic: amusing yet deep, beautiful language, a bit out-of-date old-world charm, pithy sayings that I personally needed to hear to really appreciate. I should try to find a good audio for Os Lusíadas (Camões) in Portuguese, might even come to enjoy them as well. Haven't been successful as yet.

Listening to and enjoying Cervantes also showed me why I love Le Petit Prince so much. In French! It's a nice little book, a nice little story with nice little truths but finally, nothing all that special. But I had the record, in French, and the voices just made all the difference. When I think 'snake' I hear its strange little metallic voice that goes so well with its ["Tu parles toujours en énigmes" -] "Je les résous toutes." And the 'fox' with his sweet imploring voice: "apprivoise-moi" giving reasons why it would be nice to be 'tamed', even if it meant crying when saying good-bye. The silly rose, the no-nonsense king ..... they all had voices that, for me at least, made the whole story remarkable, and memorable because it stays fresh and vivid in my head. I've listened to it in various other languages and found it quite nice, no more. Except for the tiny little snake ('mince comme un doigt mais plus puissant qu'un roi') that was given (in Russian? Polish?) the deepest of voices, more appropriate for a boa constrictor than a thin little desert viper.

Back to Cervantes: You really should know Spanish quite well before tackling him. If you have to constantly consult a dictionary it becomes a very unpleasant ordeal: some 900+ pages of hard, thumb-numbing dictionary work. Forget it. And forget about reading it in simplified form, it is reduced to silly little stories without any soul or style. Abominable! Because the story itself is not important, what makes the book outstanding is the style and the philosophy of life: Don Quijote intellectual dreamer idealist versus Sancho Panza down-to-earth realist. It is not a book for beginners or intermediate learners as they'd miss all the beauty of the book and only get the silly "caballero andante" bits. And definitely should be read it with audio, good audio. Makes all the difference.
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ren87
Triglot
Newbie
Spain
renostan.wordpress.c
Joined 6545 days ago
5 posts - 5 votes
Speaks: Spanish*, English, Turkish
Studies: Arabic (Written), Persian

Message 10 of 11

10 July 2009 at 6:07pm | IP Logged

rNajera wrote:

I read Don Quijote for the first time when I was 13 and even though there were difficult parts I didn't find it extremely hard. My edition didn't have too much notes and I would have not read it if I had to "study" it. Of course, I was mostly hooked with the story and didn't care too much if I knew the exact meaning of every single word. I remember it took me several pages to figure out whart a "yelmo" was. I guess part of my obsession with Don Quijote in my teen years, besides the fact that it is a extremely funny novel, was actually that it forced me to stay with it and decipher it.

The thing is that Don Quijote is such a good book that it accepts, and I would say, demands, different readings at different levels. I've read it twice more ever since, and I understand much more. Reading the scholarly notes now I realize that I could not have possibly understand those at 13 either.

So, I suggest you have a crack at it. Try to read it. Unless you're getting so lost that it's not fun anymore, keep going. If not, just put it aside and come back to it later. Don't worry. You should read it for fun not as an assignment.

Cheers,

Rafael.

PS. Some people say that it's easier to read for us Latinamericans because we have kept some words and turns of phrase that are now obsolete in Spain. Could be, but I'm not sure.

I don't think it is easier for any of us, the level of difficulty is actually the same for Latinamericans and Spaniards alike.

I didn't have much trouble reading it, but definitely the language is old-fashioned, and challenging for learners that have not reached Basic fluency yet.
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